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Web Sites Of The Month Making Loss Matter "The blessing we seek in life is not to live without pain. It is to live so that our pain has meaning." - excerpt from Rabbi David Wolpe's book "Making Loss Matter." In a world where our meaning appears to comes from striving for material possessions and the accolades of our peers, it often seems impossible to understand the role of loss and suffering in a Divine world. Sometimes it's only through this maze of suffering that we begin to understand the greater mystery of living.Read more here. Vocation Versus Work If we are merely working for a living, we won't appreciate the meaningfulness of our work lives. Often people with deep meaning in their work lives are ministers and doctors who have a calling, or a vocation. Read some articles on how to find that vocation that we all have. You may end up realizing the job you currently hold can be your vocation with just a slight shift in attitude or perception. Man's Search For Meaning Viktor Frankl became just a number in the Auswitz concentration camp of Germany in World War II. He lost his family, his possessions, and his dignity, as he was forced to work under Nazi rulership. The only thing left was his life, and yet it was a life of pain, humiliation, and death all around him. It was within this context that Viktor came to formulize the basics for a new form of psychotherapy which he termed "Logotherapy." He believed that man's lives consisted in a search for meaning that can be achieved through either 1. Being creative or productive, 2. Experiencing someone or something, or 3. Suffering. It was this last piece of wisdom that helped him treat many patients in their existential emptiness of grief, loneliness, and isolation and give them back a meaning for living. I do believe he has touched upon something very basic. In a culture such as ours where we disdain death, pain, and isolation, we've forgotten that sometimes it's these very circumstances that forces us to look at Self and rediscover the Divine within. Order and read his famous bestseller "Man's Search For Meaning" below:
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Higher Self Tech: Reflecting On Life's Priorities "A while back I was reading about an expert on the subject of time management. One day this expert was speaking to a group of business students and, to drive home a point, used an illustration those students will never forget. As this man stood in front of the group of high-powered overachievers he said, "Okay, time for a quiz." Then he pulled out a one-gallon, wide-mouthed Mason jar and set it on a table in front of him. Then he produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar. When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, "Is this jar full?" Everyone in the class said, "Yes." Then he said, "Really?" He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. Then he dumped some gravel in and shook the jar causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks. Then he asked the group once more, "Is the jar full?" By this time the class was onto him. "Probably not," one of them answered. "Good!" he replied. He reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in, and it went into all the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, "Is this jar full?" "No!" the class shouted. Once again he said, "Good!" Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim. Then he looked up at the class and asked, "What is the point of this illustration?" One eager beaver raised his hand and said, "The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard, you can always fit some more things into it!" "No," the speaker replied, "that's not the point. The truth this illustration teaches us is: If you don't put the big rocks in first, you'll never get them in at all." What are the 'big rocks' in your life? A project that YOU want to accomplish? Time with your loved ones? Your faith, your education, your finances? A cause? Teaching or mentoring others? Remember to put these BIG ROCKS in first or you'll never get them in at all. So, tonight or in the morning when you are reflecting on this short story, ask yourself this question: What are the 'big rocks' in my life or business? Then, put those in your jar first." - Submitted by Robert Cozzoline at United Parish of Bowie website.
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